Practice can make you better at anything, from backcountry skiing to origami to cooking pasta, but there are certain skills that some among us will simply never master. No matter how much time and effort I put into painting, I’m never going to produce a Rembrandt, for example. Nor will I be able to sink multiple three-pointers in a row even with hours on the court.
And, now in my later 30s, I’ve come to accept the fact that I’m just never going to be able to iron a shirt properly. No matter how long I stick with it, there are always weird creases, folds, and uneven spots all over any garment I try to press.
And since life here in my later 30s sees me travel an average of once a month for work, that means I often find myself trying to ever so gingerly pack a pressed shirt such that it will still look neat when I put it on it in whatever new destination I find myself. Which backfires often enough, leaving me to choose between mild wrinkles caused by the suitcase or weird lines caused by me fumbling with a hotel iron.
And so it went … until I got my hands on a few shirts from the Charles Tyrwhitt Non-Iron Collection .
Now, let’s get one thing out of the way right from the get-go: these are not cheap shirts. Each one costs more than $100 (though they are dramatically cheaper if you order multiples), so I advise you to designate them for travel as I do instead of making it an everyday shirt and shortening its lifespan. But that’s your call. And you would certainly look sharp wearing these shirts every day of your professional life.
The Non-Iron collection has shirts in just about every color you’d want, from crisp white to Oxford to coral and with patterns aplenty, but lots of companies sell shirts in lots of colors and patterns, so let’s hone in on what makes these shirts worth your coin.
A Charles Tyrwhitt Non-Iron Shirt is made from 100% cotton with a diagonal twill weave that adds durability and allows the garment to hang itself into a fresh, wrinkle-free crispness without steaming or an iron required. You just wash the shirt, then hang it to dry. When you don it, there won’t be a wrinkle in sight. (You can partially dry these shirts in a dryer, but leaving them slightly damp when you hang them helps with the smoothed-out finish, FYI.)
And that alone would be enough to have me recommending these garments, but there’s one more piece of this story, and it’s a Choose Your Own Adventure twist! Sort of. More like choose your own details. You select from four different types of fit and 11 collar sizes. You can choose button or French cuffs, you can add a left breast pocket for $7.95 more, a monogram for $11.95, and you can even pay for a custom sleeve length if one of the seven stock lengths the brand offers won’t suit.
All told, you’ll have a shirt that fits like it was tailored just for you and that will look great even your ironing skills are on par with mine.
